Savior, you mean.
—shift on the ground beside him, alert. Her eyes moved to his foot, then to his face. Her expression darkened. He knew that look and didn’t like it.
“I’m alive,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he meant to reassure her, or himself.
“Hmm.”
He found it hard to hold her gaze. He didn’t want to read her thoughts, which saidstupid humanandlook like hellandworried, too. He looked at his leg instead, at the fire. The first was painful and swollen, bandaged in what appeared to be packed leaves. The second, burning wood. Venick took the fire to mean they were safe. Safe enough, anyway, if she would risk an open flame. He touched his leg and searched his memory, trying to recall what had happened, trying to piece it all together. He was rewarded with hazy pictures and a headache for his efforts.
He blinked bleary-eyed into the forest and noticed for the first time that they were alone.
“Where are the others?” he asked. She didn’t answer. “What happened?” She didn’t answer that either. Gave him a long look instead, one that might have silenced a wiser man. “How long have—” But then he noticed something in her fist. A silver chain. His hand shot to his neck and touched only skin.
“Who gave this to you?” she asked, holding it up. Her words were delicate, silvered like that necklace. She spoke in a combination of his language and hers. Venick mentally parsed out what she’d said in elvish, deciding if any other man might understand her. He would, Venick thought. Buthellif she wasn’t testing him.
“No one.”
“You stole it?”
He let out a breathless noise. “No. I meantno one important. No one you know. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“This is elven silver.”
Venick was silent, his body stiff. When had he become so stiff? It must be the hard forest ground. His injury. Not the sight of his necklace in this elf’s hands, not the weightlessness around his neck where it usually hung. He watched her trace a thumb over the links and forced himself not to snatch it back.
“You are a mystery, human.”
“My name’s Venick. And I’d like that back.”
“This iselven silver,” she said again, ignoring his outstretched hand. “It belongs to an elf. Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Gone, or dead?”
“Dead,” he said, and practically spat out the word. Ellina raised a slender brow.
“Did you love her?”
“Stop.”
“Did you kill her?”
“Enough.” His anger came quickly, thick and hot and too big for his body. And behind the anger, a flash of memory. An elf he’d loved, a secret revealed, a murder. His entire history condensed into a blink. He pushed those memories away, forced them out of his mind. He wouldn’t think about that right now. He certainly wouldn’t explain it toher. He let out a growl and tried to get to his feet, but Ellina was there in an instant, pushing him back with a strong hand.
“You will tear the stitches,” she said.
“Damnthe stitches.”
“I did not mean to anger you.”
But she was an elf. Reeking gods, heknewelves. And she did mean to anger him, meant to push him at all angles to see what snapped. She was fleshing him out, baiting him into revealing something vital. It was a test. Lay the plank. Hammer it down. See if it would hold his weight.
And then another thought occurred to him, a nagging suspicion that broke through theangerandpainand forced him tothink. Forced him to see each piece of this moment. The fire blazing. Her missing comrades. And now, an attempt to bait him.
“I have been thinking about our bargain,” she said. She released his shoulder and sat back on her heels. Firelight danced across her face, drawing dark shadows. It was odd, that fire. Venick had assumed fire meant safety, but they couldn’t be safe. Not this far south, not if she was a northern elf in enemy territory. And her gaze. The careful way of it. The way she drewhisgaze where she wanted it, to her, to his necklace in her hands. Not at the trees. Not into the dark. As if there was something there she didn’t want him seeing.
Venick looked anyway. He peered into the night and found nothing. But he heard Ellina’s breath hitch, and his suspicion took root, blooming into full-blown certainty. Even if he couldn’t see the other five elves beyond the bright ring of firelight, he knew they were there.
